Newsletter Archive

Newsletter #12: March 2025

Dear Pride Educators,

We hope you all are doing well. It is starting to feel like spring is here with some warmer weather and longer daylight hours.

Changing weather also means our Annual Pride Conference is just around the corner! Please save the date for another exciting conference on May 21st at the International School of Lausanne. This is an opportunity to bring Middle and High School students together to connect, and to feel a strong sense of authenticity and belonging.

Please fill in the registration form and look out for more information in the next month.

Additional Save the date(s):

March 21, 2025- 13:15-14:45, LGBTQ+ Wellbeing & Inclusion in Schools – Q&A Session
- Sign up to attend, ask questions, or be a part of the panel via this form
- Video call link: https://meet.google.com/cui-nqsm-cy
May 21, 2025, 7th Annual Pride Conference International School of Lausanne
June 21, 2025, Zurich Pride March Zurich

June 7, 2025, Geneva Pride March Geneva
August 2, 2025, Bern Pride March Bern

Resources:

SGIS Pride Educators Website

International dates to celebrate

LGBTQ+ Affinity Group for International Educators

Coming Out Workshop from ISL

Good news:

Our very own Gilles Collong presented at the annual ELMLE Conference in Malta in January. The session was well received by educators from around Europe!

Re-Introducing the SGIS Pride Educators Organizers:

Stephany Herzog, International School of Zug and Luzern, stephany.herzog@iszl.ch: Lead Coordinator
Gilles Collong, Inter Community School Zurich, gcollong@icsz.ch: PD Coordinator
Alexis Dahl: International School of Zug and Luzern, alexis.dahl@iszl.ch: Technology Coordinator
Kaitlyn Somers: Zurich International School, ksomers@zis.ch: Communications Coordinator
Daniel Grocott: International School of Lausanne, dgrocott@isl.ch: Conference Coordinator

As always, we are looking for educators interested in stepping up to join the SGIS Pride Educators Organizing Committee. Please reach out if you are interested in getting more involved!

Staying Connected:

Feel free to join our SGIS Pride Educators WhatsApp group to share successes, events, and to problem solve challenges together. Please have a look at the group norms before joining.

Finally, feel free to share our membership form with anyone who might be interested in hearing more from us.

Looking forward to seeing many of you this spring!

All the best,

SGIS Pride Educators

*now with an official logo :)

Newsletter #11: September 2024

Dear Pride Educators,

We hope you have had a smooth start to the 2024-25 school year. We have an action-packed first newsletter for you with lots of opportunities for us to connect this school year.

Save the date(s):

November 15, 2024, 18:00-19:30: Social dinner gathering in Bern. Exact location to be shared soon!
November 18, 2024, 14:00-15:00: Professional Development 1: Breaking Barriers - Unveiling the “I” in Inclusion Virtual

The goal of this session is to emphasize self-reflection and share strategies for educators on how to unpack our positionality. Through introspection, we will examine the neurological short cuts we acquire and the impact it has on our day-to-day decision making. Addressing bias is not just a personal choice - it is a social agenda, a moral stance which affects inclusive interactions and practices in our learning communities.

Understand how the distorted lens of our positionality impacts the architecture of the brain,
Engage in self-reflective strategies and analyze its impact on inclusion,
Make a commitment for personal change, which will empower you and those in your school community.

January 24-25, 2025, ELMLE Malta: Professional Development 2: Navigating the Way Malta

We’ll explore:

Practical strategies for integrating LGBTQ+ representation into existing curriculum.
Tools to help teachers foster inclusive classroom environments.
The role of educators in guiding students through the social and emotional landscapes related to identity exploration.

*You must register to attend the ELMLE conference to attend this session*

May 21, 2025, 7th Annual Pride Conference International School of Lausanne

May 24, 2025, Professional Development 3: Microaggressions Workshop International School of Zug and Luzern
June 2025, Zurich Pride March Zurich
June 7, 2025, Geneva Pride March Geneva
Date TBA, Bern Pride March Bern

We will share calendar invitations closer to the dates once we have all of the relevant information. Hope to see many of you at the events!

Resources:

SGIS Pride Educators Website

International dates to celebrate

LGBTQ+ Affinity Group for International Educators

Coming Out Workshop from ISL

Introducing the SGIS Pride Educators Organizers:

Stephany Herzog, International School of Zug and Luzern, stephany.herzog@iszl.ch: Lead Coordinator
Gilles Collong, Inter Community School Zurich, gcollong@icsz.ch: PD Coordinator
Alexis Dahl: International School of Zug and Luzern, alexis.dahl@iszl.ch: Technology Coordinator
Kaitlyn Somers: Zurich International School, ksomers@zis.ch: Communications Coordinator
Daniel Grocott: International School of Lausanne, dgrocott@isl.ch: Conference Coordinator

We are always looking for educators interested in stepping up to join the SGIS Pride Educators Organizing Committee. Please reach out if you are interested in getting more involved.

Staying Connected:

Feel free to join our SGIS Pride Educators WhatsApp group to share successes, events, and ideas. Please have a look at the group norms before joining.

Finally, we love meeting new educators. Feel free to share our membership form with anyone who might be interested.

Looking forward to connecting with everyone this year!

All the best,

SGIS Pride Educators Team

Newsletter #10: March 2024

Dear Pride Educators,

I hope you are all well! We are thrilled to officially announce the 6th Annual Pride Conference, which will take place at ISZL on May 30.

Please take a look at the information sheet with exciting details about the event. If you are ready to register, you will find the registration form here.

As always, please feel free to share this message and/or the SGIS Pride Educators sign-up form with anyone interested.

Do not hesitate to get in contact with any questions. We can't wait to connect with you in May!

Best,

Kaitlyn on behalf of the SGIS Pride Educators Team

Newsletter #9: June 2023

Dear Pride Educators,

Happy Pride Month! It’s hard to think of a better way to celebrate than by meeting with 19 educators and 46 students from 6 schools at the 5th Annual Pride Conference. It was an incredibly energizing day. Students and educators enjoyed a keynote and workshops with Kristina Pennell-Götze, and educators met under the guidance of Gilles Collong, our new Professional Development Coordinator. Most importantly, connections were made and participants left feeling inspired and ignited to action.

As we discussed, we are better together. If you attended, please consider adding statements of impact to this document. The statements can come from you or your students. We can turn to these statements in case we face the pushback we discussed and it’s helpful to remind us of why we are doing this work together.

Super abbreviated summary of discussion topics / resources from the conference:

Kristina Pennell-Gotze’s keynote presentation
Kristina Pennell-Gotze’s workshop presentation
Gilles Collong’s faculty presentation (All the links should work; feedback welcome - click on the link at the end of the presentation)
Topics from educator discussions:
- Heteronormativity, cisnormativity
- Strategies for dividing in groups that aren’t boy/girl
- Wheel of Privilege and Power, use of “change agent” and “target” terminology and discussing how this differs depending on geographic and cultural context
- Fondation PROFA - sex education organization from Vaud
- Admissions application - how does you school record parent titles? How does your school request information about sex/ gender?
- The need for more time and going beyond the one-off LGBTQ+ event
- Embedding LGBTQ+ issues into curriculum
- IB shared a message in support of Pride Month: “we believe that every individual deserves respect and equal opportunities, regardless of their gender identity or sexual orientation…”
- Expressing gratitude to our administrators for supporting this important work
- Facing pushback together
Topics from afternoon circles with students:
- Need for queer friendly sex education
- Including primary school students and teachers
- Educating people on gender, generally need for more teacher PD
- How to educate instead of punish

SGIS Pride Educators Organizing Committee updates:

Lead Coordinator: Stephany Herzog (ISZL)
Professional Development Coordinator: Gilles Collong (ICS)
Membership and Communications Coordinator: Kaitlyn Somers (ZIS)
Technology Coordinator: Natalie Gildert (ISB)
Conference Coordinator: Alexis Dahl (ISZL)
Social Coordinators (for educators):
- German speaking Switzerland: Gary Brennan (ZIS)
- French speaking Switzerland: Daniel Grocott (ISL)
- Italian speaking Switzerland: TBD - do you know anyone?

Feel free to join our Pride Educators WhatsApp group to assist our Social Coordinators with planning meet ups. If you join, please have a look at the community agreements.

Upcoming Local events: June 17 - Zurich Pride March. SGIS Pride Educators are registered to march! We will meet at Helvetiaplatz by the Regenbogenfamilien kids train between 13:30 and 14:00. You will see it on Molkenstrasse in front of the Brasserie Café de Paris. Bring water, sunscreen, and some good walking shoes. Come for the whole time or a part of it. Please contact Alysha Heller with questions (aheller@zis.ch). Everyone is welcome. See you there!

International Dates to Celebrate:

June: LGBTQ+ Pride Month
June 28: Stonewall Riots Anniversary

Looking forward to collaborating in the year ahead. Have a wonderful summer!

All the best,

Kaitlyn Somers on behalf of the Pride Educators Organizing Committee

Newsletter #8: January 2023

Dear Pride Educators,

Happy New Year! How is it already January? We hope you have had a good start to the year.

What Has Been Happening:

On Friday, November 11, the ZIS Upper School SAGA club created and celebrated a new Awareness Day - QUAD (Queer Understanding & Allyship Day). It was a conscious decision to celebrate a very inclusive day focused on allyship and support.

SAGA members encouraged all faculty in the Upper School to post a purple speech bubble on their door displaying messages of positivity and support. The contributions were extremely powerful. SAGA also hosted a bake sale and designed and displayed awareness posters on campus.

We would love to hear what is happening in your schools. Feel free to contribute to our Padlet with updates.

Upcoming Local events:

February 9 or 23: SGIS Pride Educators Annual Meeting at Zurich International School Secondary Campus. Fill out the Doodle by Jan 26th to identify your available dates (even if you don’t yet have permission from your school). ZIS has offered to provide us with lunch. Thank you! Any educator is welcome to join (bring another colleague for an afternoon out!). Discussions will focus around queer visibility, protection, and celebration in our schools. Reach out to ksomers@zis.ch if you are interested in attending, but can’t make it on either of those dates so we keep you in the loop, or if you have questions/suggestions for topics to discuss at the meeting. Join us!
March 24-25: SGIS Annual Conference “Connection” This conference focuses on sustainability, diversity, equity, inclusion, and well-being. The list of speakers is impressive, including speakers focusing on empathy, queer identity, and experience and allyship. We are thinking of going! Let us know if you’re going and we can go for dinner!
June 17: Zurich Pride March. SGIS Pride Educators are registered to march for the fourth year! You can walk with us independently for part or the whole thing. You can drop by and say hello. Usually teachers announce it to students and encourage them to come with their families as it is not a school sponsored event. Every year we have a nice mix of schools, educators, families and friends marching together. We walk near to the Regenbogen Familien who bring a train for the small children (pictured below). You can’t miss it! Contact aheller@zis.ch if you have questions.

International Dates to Celebrate:

March 31: International Transgender Day of Visibility

We hope to connect with all of you this spring. Have a great second semester!

All the best,

SGIS Educator Coordination team

Newsletter #7: April 2022

Dear Pride Educators,

We hope you have had a wonderful Spring Break. It has been a busy few months. On March 26th, ZIS hosted the 4th Annual Pride Conference: A Time to Rise sponsored by SGIS. The day was full of sharing ideas, laughter, and inclusivity. The students showed up as their authentic selves, ready to share and learn.

What Has Been Happening:

SGIS Pride conference hosted by ZIS had 6 schools registered with about 30 attendees. The event included workshops about gender, labels, society, queer representation in media, and a spectacular fashion show. There were also teacher workshops that provided opportunities for educators to connect and share best practices and what is happening at their schools so that we could all learn from each other.
Lana Barukcic (ICS) has volunteered to be our social/outreach coordinator - welcome!

Upcoming Local events:

Zurich Pride March: June 18th
Zurich Pride Festival: June 17th and 18th

International Dates to Celebrate:

April 26: Lesbian Visibility Day
May 17: International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia, and Biphobia
May 19: Agender Pride Day
May 24: Pansexual and Panromantic Awareness Day
June 5-11: QTBIPOC Pride Week
June: Pride Month

Resources:

Continue to add to this Padlet to celebrate and to learn about what is happening at SGIS Schools.

All the best,

SGIS Educator Coordination team

Newsletter #6: January 2022

Dear Pride Educators,

We hope you all had a wonderful December break and are looking forward to the new year! Let’s see what 2022 can bring us. Hopefully more time together, greater support for students and inspiration.

What Has Been Happening:

The SGIS Educator Coordinators have met twice to divide up roles and have a stronger representation from a few schools.
- Alysha and Kaitlyn (ZIS) Pride Conference Coordinator
- Natalie (ISB) Technology and Membership Coordinator
- Stephany (ISZL) Communication Coordinator
We have created a Padlet where we can all share ideas and use it as a place to look for inspiration, resources and ideas. Add to this Padlet to celebrate what is happening at SGIS Schools and to share resources
We are working hard on the upcoming Middle School Pride Conference
We are looking for a coordinator to support with outreach and social events. If you are interested please reply to this email.

Upcoming Local events:

Middle School Pride Conference - Mark your calendars!
- Host School: ZIS Middle School, Kilchberg
- Date: March 26, 2022 9:00-16:00
- Participants: Ages 11-14, Panel Speakers: Ages 15-18
- Register at this link: Middle School Pride Conference 2022 Registration Form

International Dates to Celebrate:

February 20-26: Aromantic Awareness Week
March 21-25: National LGBT Health Awareness Week
March 31: International Transgender Day of Visibility

Resources:

Look at this Padlet to see what is happening in other schools.

All the best,

SGIS Educator Coordination team

Newsletter #5: September 2021

Dear Pride Educators,

And in the blink of an eye, it's nearly October (LGBTQ History Month). We hope that you have had a smooth start to yet another strange school year!

We are energized after hosting a SAGA leaders retreat this week. Now that our group is established, we're working to hand over the reins to our student leaders. We were lucky to have administration support to meet for a morning with our student leaders. We spent the morning:-Team building and learning to effectively communicate-Looking at our individual leadership styles through the SRI Compass Points activity
-Reviewing this year's leadership positions and descriptions of responsibilities-Developing a shared ethos for our group and signing a contract-Hitting the ground running with Coming Out Week plans and planning for other important events-Connecting with the Upper School SAGA leaders
We would love to hear from you. Please reach out if you're interested in discussing student leadership opportunities and structures. Ideally, we hope to share systems that are working and to problem solve together when things aren't going to plan.

October 11 is Coming Out Day. Are you celebrating in your schools? Our kids are working to plan a week of activities leading up to our fall break. It would be wonderful to hear your ideas.
Please reply if you'd like to join an SGIS Pride Educators leadership meeting in October. We'll look at planning more ways we can connect in the year ahead.
All the best,

Kaitlyn, Rachel, Alysha & Gary

Newsletter #4: June 2021

Dear SGIS Pride Educators Group,

Did another school year really just fly by? Here is a short note looking back and looking forward.

In a year full of lots of new ways of doing things, we have been so happy and grateful for all of the digital communication and exchange happening between SGIS Pride Educators. We have joined students together in virtual club meetings, connected students across schools, and run parallel activities. As teachers, we have connected to support each other, shared resources, encouraged each other, and celebrated successes (no matter how small). We have felt very thankful to be able to work with you all this year on so many important initiatives, and it is cool to hear about all the good work you are doing. On that note, we'd love to hear from you. Are you celebrating Pride Month in any unique ways? At ZIS, our club will be participating in the Pride Day Run 2021.

Before the summer, let's get some special dates in the calendar for this coming year!

Local events (join us):

SGIS Pride Educators Dinner - August 21st 18:00 Restaurant Rosso - Sign-up here
International Middle School SAGA Conference - March 26th (hopefully, we can do this in person TBD)
Zurich Pride Parade - June 2022 (date TBD)
FYI: Marriage Equality Referendum in Switzerland: September 26

A few international dates to celebrate:

International Coming Out Day - Monday, October 11th
Transgender Awareness Week - November 13th-19th
International Women's Day - March 8th
Transgender Day of Visibility - March 31st
International Day of Pink - April 13th

We are always looking for people to help us run SGIS and build its potential. We would like help planning social and PD events for teachers (including virtual events), building connections between schools, managing membership, updating the website.... and generally taking it to the next level. Reply to this message if interested!

When we think back to starting this group, our goal was always to bring educators together to include, protect, and celebrate sexual orientation and gender identity diversity in our schools through events, advocacy, the curriculum, policy and larger school structures. We are now a vibrant group of 70+ educators! We are on our way. Thanks for being a part of it.

Have a fab summer!

Newsletter #3: February 2021

Dear Pride Educators,

We hope you are coping during these unprecedented times. Many of us and our students are facing some degree of isolation and loneliness. We feel that community is more important now than ever before.

In a sea of not so great news, we would like to share some positive things that have been happening here-

We held a presentation series on ELMLE's Mondays for the Middle: Celebrating and Supporting the LGBTQ+ Community in Our Schools. ELMLE member schools can access these recordings and resources by registering for ELMLE 2021. Materials are linked on the Whova App.
Our SAGA club leadership structures have really blossomed this school year. The kids are more motivated than ever to participate and lead our initiatives, despite the challenges of on and off remote learning along with activity restrictions.
Kaitlyn & Rachel welcomed another SAGA baby (Ruby) in November :)
We are in the midst of planning our annual Middle School SAGA conference (online) on March 20. More details below...

Last year our ACT Conference was unfortunately postponed due to COVID-19. We felt confident that we would be able to meet in person this March, but this is unfortunately still not possible. We have decided to host the Annual SAGA Conference (online) on March 20, 2021 from 9:15-12. Our focus is Gender: Questioning expectations, norms and the binary. We hope that you and your students might be able to join us virtually. Students in grades 6-9 are welcome as participants with a teacher or counselor. We are also seeking students in grades 10-12 to join a panel. You can find the registration form here. Please reply to this message if you would like more information.

Whether or not you and your students are able to join us, you can participate! Our kids would benefit from hearing from a variety of people about how they challenge the binary. We would be grateful if you would consider sending us a short video (under 2 minutes)

-short introduction
-how do you challenge the binary by the way you dress, act, think, dream?
If you are willing to participate, please send the video by March 1. You can send via email or upload your video to this folder.
We would love to hear from you. Have you had any successes engaging with your SAGA groups during remote learning and beyond? Please send us a short update if you have time and we can share ideas on the SGIS Pride Educators website.
In the meantime, we hope you are staying well and finding some joy as the days get longer.

Best,

Kaitlyn, Rachel, Alysha & Gary

Newsletter #2: February 2020

Dear Pride Educators,

We hope that you are all doing well. After meeting with many inspiring middle school educators at ELMLE 2020, we are feeling energized and excited to continue the conversation about supporting diversity in our schools.

The SGIS Pride Educators Site has officially moved. Please have a look and feel free to share with interested educators (in Switzerland and beyond). If you have any resources to share, send them our way and we will update the site. We are hoping the 'Join the Conversation' feature will allow us to share great practices and problem solve issues that may arise. We are gearing up for ACT! The Conference on March 28. Our keynote speakers are Lucinda O'Hanlon and Elsa De Pennec, who are Women's Rights and LGBT+ Rights Advisors respectively to the United Nations High Commission in Geneva. They will be focusing on activism in general, and how when we fight for the rights of one minority group, we fight for universal human rights. This allows us to widen the appeal to students who might be passionate about a different type of activism; the goal being for all students to walk away with more confidence and some strategies for engaging in all types of activism in their schools and communities. We also will have speakers from the Transgender Network Switzerland and Milchjugend, Louis Kaeser and James Ackermann - so it is chalking up to a great day! We will devote one teacher workshop session to an "SGIS Pride Educators Annual Meeting," where we will discuss our goals for the upcoming year, volunteer positions where educators can help out, and brainstorm our next steps.

This is our last call for registrations and we would be so delighted if you can join us. If you have already filled out the interest form, please have students fill in the registration form so that we have exact numbers by the end of next week.

All the best,

Kaitlyn, Rachel, Alysha & Gary

Newsletter #1: October 2019

Dear Pride Educators,

In this email, you will find a big welcome to new members, a brief history of our group, and some news.

Welcome!

We were overwhelmed by the interest in our new SGIS Pride Educators Group, from both within and outside of Switzerland, and we're pleased to see the network growing. Welcome all new members!

History

The idea for this group came out of the professional development workshops at the Middle School Sexuality and Gender Awareness (SAGA) Conference in March, 2019. Educators from five International Schools in Switzerland decided that we wanted to have a way to keep in touch, share resources, and support each other as we try to do this good work in our schools.
The Conference hosts, faculty from Zurich International School, applied to become an official Swiss Group of International Schools (SGIS) Group; we built a website to house resources, and are now sending out our first Newsletter. My name is Alysha Heller, and I am currently in charge of curating this group list. I look forward to this group taking on a life of its own, as new ideas and energy join the group and network, and I find myself joyfully coming along for this ride. I feel a tangible momentum for this work in our schools and it is exciting to be a part of.

News

Website is up! The SGIS Pride Educators Group website is now up and running. This website serves as one way to create space for this work, to house specific resources we are using, articulate our group's history and purpose, and hopefully, serve as a platform for growing our Pride Educators community. Do you know of something happening that isn't on there yet? Let us know and we'll add it. Do you, or someone in your network, want to help us build this site further? Please get in touch and let's see where it takes us.
The 2nd Annual International Middle School SAGA Conference The Conference has been announced for March 28th, 2020. Find the Information Sheet and Registration of Interest Form for your school on this link to Upcoming Events. Please share this event with other interested schools in your network, inside or outside of Switzerland. This conference is an opportunity for us to see each other again in person, and network and share during the educator workshops.
ELMLE Conference Pride Four teachers from Zurich International School are taking to the road January 23-25th, 2020 and presenting a workshop around the question: "What if all LGBTQ+ students felt welcome in our Middle Schools?" Join the conversation there in person. Information available on the ELMLE website.
Zurich Pride Parade In June 2019, the Pride Educators Group, along with families from our schools, walked together in the Zurich Pride Parade. We will be doing it again this year. Once the date is announced, we start planning.

Building Community

Let's keep the conversations growing and going. Check out the website, add to the forum, meet up at ELMLE or the SAGA Conference, and let's work together to create more inclusive schools for everyone's mutual benefit.
Action Item: What can you do today to be an ally to the larger LGBTQ+ community? Spread the conversation. Forward this Newsletter to any administrators, counselors, or teachers you think might be interested, both inside and outside of Switzerland.

Yours,

Alysha

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